Halo 5: New mechanics and their uses

Hi there. If you don't know me already, my name is Locke, I'm ranked #51 on the wiki, I frequent the Battle threads, and I'm out of stuff to say.

This post is all about understanding the new Smart Scope, Spartan Abilities, and other things. Let's start with smartscope

1: Smart Scope.

Halo 5's take on smartscope drove up a lot of controversy over its display. When the zoom action is preformed, it shows you an angle of the gun with an overlay.

This is not ADS.

If it was ADS, the reticule would visibly contract by a lot. I'm not going to say the Smart Scope doesn't increase accuracy. It does. It has since Halo CE. Simple logic: If I'm 50 units away and I scope, and it looks like I'm 25 units away and the reticule size hasn't changed, will I be twice as accurate? Yes. Your view of the target is that it is twice as close as it actually is. Your reticule has not changed size. Your first "Cold Shot" (the military term for the first shot out of a barrel) will be twice as accurate. When your reticule fully contracts, you are back to your accuracy from your cold shot. To find how many times more accurate, look at the zoom level. That's how many times. Halo 5 simply gives it a new zoom angle. It's the same zoom and accuracy. Stop saying it's ADS because the default zoom control is a trigger. We have had Zoom-And-Shoot since 2004.

Moving on.

2: Thruster Pack.

Personally, I love this. Your targets will be blasting all over the place to evade fire while shooting. Since autoaim is disabled, you will need really good trigger control and thumbstick mastery to continuously land shots while they're using it. This definetly will help against power weapons like the sniper rifle. 10X accuracy can only get you so far.

Next up: Sprint.

3: Sprint.

I like how 343 balanced the sprint, and from a canon standpoint it makes sense. You sacrifice protection for speed because your shields only have enough power to keep the shield up but not recharging. I like it.

4: Charge.

Charge is all about sprinting melee. You hit terminal velocity at a sprint, you have someone in front of you, you use the thruster pack to slam them, either killing them or ruining both your shields. If you have a quick trigger finger you can easily win the day with this, so to speak.

5: Slide.

Slide is similar to charge, but not a melee option. You crouch and thruster pack at a sprint's terminal velocity, you duck down and either slide to cover or close the distance for a quick melee. There's not much to say about it.

6: Ground Pound.

This is really interesting. When jumping, hold crouch to target an area to ground pound, and after a very short time, you slam to the ground, dealing intense splash damage. It takes a direct hit to kill someone. Near misses deal shield-crushing damage. This looks to be a good ability to use in a chain of them, for instance Ground Pound onto Thruster Pack onto Charge.

7: Clamber.

This lets you recover if you just miss that perfect jump and need to get back up fast. If you set it to hold, holding A while jumping will let you clamber. I reccomend this setting so that as long as you are very close to the edge you can recover while holding it. Setting it to press requires almost superhuman concentration and incredibly fast reflexes.

8: Shield Bar.

This is technically not an ability, but it's intriguing. You have TWO shields instead of one. The first shield lasts longer and appears to be your primary defense. Your secondary shield looks to me like just another shield. There's a gametype called Breakout which is "Higher Lethality", or you have just the secondary, inner shield. Higher Lethality games emphasize headshots to kill quicker.

Okay, that wraps it up. Tell me how I did and what I can improve in the comments below if you don't mind.